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GARY, Ind. (AP) — Hammond and Gary public schools are two of the few school districts in the region to participate in the Community Eligibility Program, which allows a district to feed school children breakfast and lunch for free.
The Community Eligibility Program, called CEP, is the newest opportunity for schools with high percentages of low-income children to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students. Its goal is to increase participation in school meal programs and reduce labor costs by eliminating the expense of a lengthy application process.
Gary schools spokesman Michael Gonzalez told The Times (http://bit.ly/1M6y2NE ) this is the first year Gary Community School Corp. has implemented CEP, and all students can eat free breakfast and lunch. "This is a great opportunity for our students, because we know that nutritious meals will positively impact their educational process," he said.
Though 55 percent of students in Portage Township Schools qualify for free and reduced-cost meals, food service director Marsha Stephens said the district as a whole doesn't qualify for the program.
Schools with at least 40 percent of students already participating in other programs automatically qualify for CEP. Those programs are Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, the Temporary Assistance Program for Needy Families, and foster care, homeless or Head Start programs.
United States Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Kevin Concannon said CEP was made possible through the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, and more than half of all eligible, high-poverty schools across the country have implemented this provision.
"Schools across the country are reporting increases in school breakfast and lunch participation, better attendance rates, fewer trips to the school nurse because kids are hungry and less staff time spent on reviewing free and reduced price school meal applications," he said.
He said Hammond is a great example of what's going on across the nation. Julie Boettger, director of food and nutrition services at School City of Hammond, said they implemented CEP at the elementary level this year so they could assess the impact on school finances.
"With Smart Snack regulations starting at the same time, we thought the financial risk would be too high to extend the program to the middle and high schools. We do serve breakfast at no cost at all grade levels to encourage students to eat breakfast at school," she said.
Boettger said 77 percent of all students eat school lunch and 40 percent eat breakfast at school, and breakfast continues to rise each month as more parents realize they offer this benefit.
"That's a 7 percent increase in lunch and 34 percent increase in breakfast compared to October 2013. Part of the increase in breakfast is also due to schools serving breakfast in the classroom, which results in higher participation because students do not need to come to school earlier to receive it," she said.
Boettger said the program benefits the district in a couple of ways, most importantly, that students are not coming to class hungry so they are able to concentrate on their lessons.
Some other local school districts are waiting before implementing the program.
River Forest food service Director Jan Black said 78 percent of its 1,385 students receive free and reduced-cost meals.
"I'll be working with the Department of Education to hopefully implement it here next year. The thought of being able to feed the entire student body for free is something I would love to put into place, so we are earnestly seeking to do so," she said.
Lake Station food service Director Theresa Kietzman said it has not implemented the Community Eligibility Provision Program this school year.
"I am looking into how it could benefit our school district, and I will focus on possibly looking at starting with one school at a time in the future and see how the participation is affected," Kietzman said.
While more than 60 percent of Merrillville students receive free and reduced-cost lunch, the school district does not qualify for the community eligibility provision, because it is also based on the level of poverty in the community as a whole for which Merrillville does not qualify, interim Superintendent Tony Lux said.
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